Old Year Leaves

Photo by Klim Musalimov on Unsplash

The leaves which in the autumn of the year

Fall auburn-tinted, leaving reft and bare

Their parent trees, in many a sheltered lair

Where Winter waits and watches, cold, austere,

Will lie in drifts; and when the snowdrops cheer

The woodland shadows, still the leaves are there,

Though through the glades the balmy southern air

And birds and boughs proclaim that Spring is here.

So lost hopes severed by the stress of life

Lie all unburied yet before our eyes,

Though none but we regard their mute decay;

And ever amid this stir and moil and strife

Fresh aims and growing purposes arise

Above the faded hopes of yesterday.

~ H.T. Mackenzie Bell

From Old Year Leaves: A Volume of Collected Verse (1883)

December Daisies and December Days

Image credit: nbelokonskaya from Pixabay 

Ah, how the sight of fair untimely flowers

Awakes a subtle sentiment, and fills

The soul with quiet pleasure. Something thrills

Our being to the core and softly showers

Strange yearning thought upon us. When the close

Of a December day is stirless, mild

As is this twilight hour, we are beguiled

By its seductive softness: and there grows

(As one by one from out the placid sky

The tranquil stars appear), the half-formed doubt

Whether the scene be real. For without

A question kindly Auster cannot try

To bring a greater boon. Joys that arise

All unexpected we most keenly prize.

~ H. T. Mackenzie Bell